To Bill Shorten and the Labor Party,
You are no doubt aware of the growing concern amongst progressive voters about your performance. And by performance, I don’t mean pithy one-liners delivered at Question Time or the meal you cooked for Annabel Crabb.
I mean your failure to hold the Coalition to account, your silence when we should hear outrage, and your refusal to offer a better alternative.
I understand that you have countless strategists planning your moves but they are also failing in their job. We need to hear from you. You need to prepare the road for the way ahead.
Stop beginning every sentence with “Tony Abbott”. The phrase “Tony Abbott’s unfair budget” has become as grating as “Labor’s debt and deficit disaster”.
What you should be saying is “We do not support the Government’s proposal because……Our plan is to……”
You need to delineate clear differences between the Labor Party and the Coalition because at the moment you are being referred to as the lesser of two evils, and not by much, which is a damning indictment considering how badly this government is performing.
You don’t have to pay millions for advertising to tell us how bad this government is – we already know – just go back through the quotes from the Coalition and show their hypocrisy and lies.
You don’t have to pay consultants to come up with ideas – the internet is full of them, many with the accompanying research already done for you. You could do worse than reading the articles and comments here and on other independent sites to get you started.
You don’t have to conduct polls and focus groups to find out what people think – it’s all there on blogs and social media, in letters to the editor and phone calls to radio hosts.
The latest Roy Morgan poll shows Australian electors are not convinced how well Bill Shorten’s handling his job as Opposition Leader; 40% (down 2%) disapprove and 37% (unchanged) approve although a much higher 23% (up 2%) still can’t say how they view the Opposition Leader. After more than a year in the job, almost a quarter of the electorate don’t have a view on how Mr Shorten is going. That’s a telling figure.
It’s time to get on with it – tell us your thoughts. Give us some choices. You don’t have to commit to a detailed plan, just throw up some alternatives. Get the conversation started.
